Welcome back to another episode of five minutes in church history.

As I recall, last week we left on a rather sad note as we were looking at Schliermacher

and some of his ideas in the beginnings of modern liberalism.

Well, we're going to carry right on with another sad note in

this week's episode. Instead of being at the end of the 18th century we're going to

be at the end of the 19th century we're going to be at the end of the 19th century we're

going to 1891 and

1893 in the case of Charles Augustus Briggs.

In 1893, Charles Augustus Briggs was, after being tried, defraked of his ministerial credentials in the Presbyterian

Church in the USA.

Who is Charles Augustus Briggs and why does he matter?

And why does his church trial matter?

Well, to set the stage, we need to start at Princeton, and we need to start with an article

that was written by AA Hodge, who was the son of Charles Hodge, and B. B.

Warfield, and the article was entitled Inspiration. In it, Hodge in Warfield set forth

the view of verbal plenary inspiration.

That is to say that all of the Bible, that's the plenary part, the entire Bible is inspired, and the very words of the Bible are inspired.

And it follows from verbal plenary inspiration that since the Bible is God's word,'s true which is to say that following from

verbal plenary inspiration we have the doctrine of inerancy so this is where

we start. That same year, Charles Briggs wrote a response,

and in his response he rejected the idea that inspiration is verbal. He had no problem with the plenary part. He just didn't like the verbal part.

It's not the words that are inspired, it's just the thoughts.

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